One day, I would like to see BDO devs trying to make some interesting content from this, precisely, that's the idea!

Currently, they only kept the bad side of pvp in the whole concept, as I said many times, if they remove meaning from owpvp, yes, it becomes meaningless. And that's the direction devs chose to follow.

Instead, I think they should make it tempting but dangerous, triggering some temporary benefits but with the threat of being removed from the spot for getting caught. And I think red players shouldn't be able to switch channel for a certain duration after the last murder. 

And other players should also be tempted to hunt killers, able to detect their rough location. Nothing's better than owpvp to control owpvp.

Last but not least, the death penalties. The current ones are clearly inefficient in any situation, a dedicated griefer (excessive pk or ks) can simply gear accordingly to avoid the harshest penalties, and still be a nuisance. For me, the idea of permanent losses as we have right now is counterproductive. I'd suggest to remove any permanent loss for a death (including enhancement loss, crystal destruction, even elixir loss!) and add ideas like :

- no way to switch for a set duration for a PK, jail if caught

- heavy weakness again monsters for the victim after the 2nd death (no matter pvp or pve death), debuff removed after a switch but the player can't go back to the initial channel for a set duration.

Devs should use both the owpvp trend of some players AND the channel system to their advantage, in fact. Instead of seperating players and in the end, which in fact create more work for them due to the work on many different game styles. 

I am still waiting for some evidence that "at the cost of players who were dedicated to the game for a long time" and that "not caring since they are a business" shows that "these new players likely are bringing in money to them" which is the reason that "they are just going to cave in and change the game to meet their expectations".

Can you provide evidence that all this, what they're doing, is actually benefiting their bottom line?  Like you said, they're a "business".  So, that means profit > everything else, basically.  So, where is their financial reports showing that these changes are indeed making them more money?  Where is the evidence that these changes -- that many vets are pissed / saddened / quit about -- are beneficial to their "business"?  I asked you to provide some hard evidence, some facts, to back up your speculations.  Are you able to or not able to provide some facts?  I only ask because I WANT to have hope for this game.  I WANT to believe BDO isn't in the beginning stages of life-support.  I WANT to believe you, I WANT to believe that PA is making decisions that benefit the game, at least from a business standpoint.  I WANT to believe, bro.  But I need facts, I need evidence, I need more than speculations and hot air and hopium at this point.  I need facts -- so can you or can you not provide some facts / hard evidence / something I can look at?  I've asked you multiple times already.

I'm looking online and I can't find their most recent financials...so can you or someone find them?  Again, I WANT to beleive in PA.  I WANT to believe your speculations.  That hope is fading, and I don't want to give up on BDO just yet.  So some facts, some hard evidence, to back up your claims here would at least refill my hopium / copium reserves by a little.  And maybe even refill those reserves for other players as well.

I don't mean this in a "love it or leave it" sense but why not just quit if you really think the game is heading to the dumpster? It'll be better for your general enjoyment in life if you just focus on things that you enjoy instead of things that seem to cause you nothing but despair. If the game makes you miserable and sad then there's no reason to stay. You don't owe the game your loyalty. There are thousands of games out there that you could play that could give you a more enriching experience. Don't shackle yourself to this game.

Did it even have a goal back then?

If it did, it wasn't meant to benefit the players. I suspect it served two purposes in particular :

- Hindering player progress by pitting the players against each other.

- Serving as a means of "free content", again via the players fighting each other, saving the developers from having to make as much and obscuring the reality that much of the content isn't worth doing.

This might've worked well enough back when +15 was the max and the power creep wasn't as pervasive as now, but this does not change that ultimately it was a flawed system that without exception causes a degrade in quality of the MMOs it appears in, unless it's sequestered away in its own mode or its own servers, which are often less populated.

I did not ask for your advice about how I should live my life -- I asked @Vanraven for evidence.  Please do not derail the topic.

As for what my IRL vs gaming life is right now, I work a full-time job along with 2 independent contractor jobs, and just started a small business.  That's 4 jobs.  Recently got married.  My hobbies include basketball, boxing, bodyboarding and my time is spent outside of gaming for a HUGE portion of my day.  When I do get time to play video games, I play games with my IRL friends -- Day Z, CS2, Helldivers, ARAM in LoL, to name a few, and I play a few single-player games when I have some time as well -- Tomb Raider Game of the Year Edition is free for download on Prime Gaming right now, so I just started playing that.

BDO, however, is my MMORPG.  It's a gameworld I've called home for 8 years.  So sue me for wanting to maintain a level of love and passion for a game that I've been passionate about for 8 years.  That said, I have quit, my dude.  I haven't grinded a single mob in over 6 months.  I haven't node warred in even longer.  I go into RBF every now and then so I don't get too rusty on Sorc, occasional AoS, other than that, I don't play, my guy.

But even then -- and you may see things differently than I do -- I still have a level of love for Sorceress and BDO as a whole.  My passion and love tend to run pretty deep, again, if you can't relate, then i understand.  Like I said, I WANT to believe Vanraven's specualtions.  Which is why I'm asking for some facts/evidence that I can see, with my eyes, on paper, to backup what he's saying.  PA's latest financial reports, to be specific.  Because I'd like to KNOW if PA is making the right decisions and as a "business" like he said, if they were, they'd be making more money, right?  So where is the proof?

Your advice is sound, but I'm way ahead of you -- I've been doing EXACTLY that, MONTHS before you decided to give un-asked-for advice.

@Vanraven -- Still waiting for evidence, brother.  Can you provide it, or no?  Simple question.

BDO was and is a very unique, niche MMO.  It's open world sandbox design allowed for so many player-interactions not found in other MMOs.  Not only in terms of aggression, but things like making meaningful decisions, actually communicating and interacting with others in the open world, alliances, rivalries, so many social aspects that was ONLY allowed via the old system where OWPVP / GVG was more prevalent. 

OWPVP had many "goals".  Things like defending one's claimed spot, to settling guild disputes, to building comraderie with your guild, to things like injecting BDO's open world with a sense of thrill, unexpected encounters, and it was just plain FUN.  Fun for many players, at least.  Not to mention OWPVP being a harbinger of organic-GVG-content that many players found immense pride and fun participating in.  And if you didn't find OWPVP fun?  Then players could avoid it for over 90% of their gameplay with many ways to avoid OWPVP.  Marni's Realm, swapping channels, guild protection, to name a few.  Not to mention the Karma System being punishing enough to deter the huge majority of players from going red.  OWPVP also served as a means for meaningful gear progression as OWPVP was one of the very few avenues in which gear ALWAYS played a role -- it wasn't gear capped -- you need gear to perform at the highest level, and gave gearing in BDO so much meaning and tangible benefits.

Your argument seems to be that old system, which I described, degraded the quality of BDO as an MMO.  If that is true, then why was BDO and PA's net income and profit margins much, much higher during the years OWPVP was more prevalent versus now, where virtually everything is instanced and the open world is barren?  If BDO's quality was degraded, why was it making more money back then than now, where, according to your logic, the quality should be higher?  Looking at the most recent financial reports I could find, PA is on a financial downtrend.  If you could provide some numbers that shows PA / BDO's financial growth in recent years, I'd love to see it.  In fact, I've been asking this forum for that and NO ONE can provide evidence of it.  I wonder why.

Everything you just wrote is what is currently wrong with present day gamers.. literally i don't even know if i can call you guys gamers anymore.

I am going to use another game as an example.. Helldivers 2.  Now personally i don't play it, just not into that type of game Genre. That doesn't mean i dont keep an eye out or disinterested in other games .

Unless you've been living under a rock, Sony made a snap decision to enforce the use of its PS account system to allow you to continue gameplay with your steam account, basically forcing you to link the two accounts. EVERYONE knows how bad Sony security is and could lead to vulnerabilities in your steam account NOT to mention the 120 million players that live in countries that legally don't allow Sony PS accounts at all would ultimately loseing there accounts as well as massive amount of the player base..

Bam a furious weekend over the last 72 hours the ENTIRE COMMUNITY... stood up together and said NO.. NOT trash talk from a content creator or a person in discord with the ENTIRE COMMUNITY BLACK LISTING Helldivers2... to announce late yesterday that Sony is doing for the 1st time ever a COMPLETE 180... Bowing to a community that is already following an ideology similar to those in the military... The Esprit De Corps that these players are showing almost brings a tear to my eyes.

That being said it was the Community of Helldivers 2 not the Devs, not the publisher that forced this change. This is how it USED to be in almost ALL GAMING COMMUNITIES. There may be factions among those playing games that like certain things and may not enjoy the company of others causing strife but when someone in the community was getting picked on the general consensus what we all stood together.

BDO has lost that, with your very short commentary asking a player that has spent 8 years of his life to simply quit... is friggin disgusting, PeaceinChaos along with a few of us has been very vocal leaders in the forums since back during the Kakao days. We do our best to wade through the garbage trying our best to make sure everyone has the RIGHT information at hand. From financial statements over the past 5 years to the ups and downs of stock and steam charts, every decision that PA has made has a direct correlation to Stocks, Financial earnings, in game player base health to in game markets health.

Wishing desperately that PA will actually start to listen to the player base and fix some of this piss poor direction that has literally tanked everything inside and outside of BDO... Those of you that are complacent because you have the "don't touch me " attitude in a MMORPG and are happy with the changes last year are starting to get a dose of reality.. if you look at the internal market of BDO by itself you would know something is very wrong if you dont care cuz you finally get yours well enjoy because just like many other games in the past when an Open Worlds economy collapses so does the game itself.

Why do I say this to you when you really obviously don't care..... it's simple if the door doesn't get slammed in your face due to your behavior others will follow, it is a complete trash attitude like that that has led to this community taking a theoretical shit on the other half instead of standing with them. The question is who in reality is the minority here you may say PVPers are, but they sure as hell are the ones that have kept BDO afloat for 8 years.. The money started walking away from BDO last summer after all the PVP changes and Jayhee Kim's complete disrespect toward the community... There are very few % wise of us left and it is only going to get worse.

The clock is ticking as well as the time for getting PA to make some changes that benifits the entire community at some point in the near future nothing will fix a game that a lot of us put 8 years of our lives into.

The uniqueness of BDO's features is something best discussed in a different thread. While it certainly has them, calling the game overall "unique" would be inaccurate. Moreover, "unique" doesn't equal good or better on its own. Likewise regarding its "sandbox" nature, if that's the proper definition.

The claims of "meaningful decisions, actually communicating and interacting with others" ring hollow. It is fact that save for specific circumstances in the open world (Field/World Bosses, Boss Summon Scrolls*, party grinding zones), another player being around is often an immediate detriment. This is due to the contrivance of having to fight over the spot, and thus the loot one would get from the grind, a problem that had already been solved by Guild Wars 2 back in 2012, and Pearl Abyss has shown that they could fix overall, if they cared enough to.

Most of the "goals" you have stated mean little if anything for me, as I am guildless. My only goal regarding OWPvP was to be strong enough to defend myself, something that has been denied more often than not. These encounters were not often, but they did occur, resulting in frustration and annoynace regarding this system, compounded by the other flawed systems in this game.

In addition, most of the methods for avoiding it are at best limited (Marni's Realm) and/or rely on luck (channel swapping). The karma system is likewise limited in effectiveness as a deterrent. Not all scumbags go red, just the ones that don't have to worry about retribution.

OWPvP is not a means for meaningful gear progression. It can be a motivator, but no amount of motivation can overcome the flaws of the enhancement system. Indeed, it is worth noting that save for some specific rewards, the vast majority of work attempting to progress one's gear, is in PvE.

Now, to my argument. Which is, that open world PvP ultimately causes a degrade in quality in MMOs. Well, to be more specific, PvP focus in any game that isn't already designed with PvP focus in mind (Shooters, Fighters, MOBAs, Survival, Etc) will invariably lead to a degrade in the game's quality. There can be exceptions, but this is the rule, and it's one that has been proven more often than not, not just from my experiences in BDO, but in other games I have played, and ones I have heard of, watched videos on, or read about that also had OWPvP. Pearl Abyss was already proven unable or unwilling to make this game an exception.

Note that I didn't bring up the financial reports. This is because I didn't know where to go get them (I suppose Google, but I doubt it would be that easy), have no way of verifying their accuracy, and even if I could, would still not be able to determine the cause of the decline from just that. That'd require paying attention to every change that's been going on behind the scenes, likely far too much for just one person. The changes made to OWPvP could be a cause, or they might not be. Or they might be one of many factors, as I would think people each have their own reasons for opting out of the game, or not paying into it any further. I don't consider myself qualified to figure that out.

I simply gave my thoughts regarding the "goal" of open world PvP, based on my experiences and nothing else.

Once some years back people in my guild started telling me in chat that this one guy kept griefing them and the guy was saying it was my fault because I had griefed him before and now `that he had good gear, he wanted revenge on me and my whole guild. I couldn't fathom what the hell they were on baout having never griefed anyone in this game ever. And then eventually I remembered, maybe close to a whole year before they began to grief my guild, I'd seen some guy botting on arsha. I saw them at it three days in a row. I killed them each time. On the last day I said if i caught them again they were getting reported (it was always in the same spot and I was doing dailies there). What I was doing clearly wasnt gtiefing and even if it had been, the guy was doing something that is not allowed. Anyway, apparently that pissed them off so that they remembered my name and identified my guild`(I'm pretty sure i wasnt in that guild at the time I had killed him). They kept griefing my guild on and off for at least a year.  My point is, some people are just a bit nuts and dont need  valid reasons to carry a grudge and grief you.

I actually wonder if it was the same guy that griefed Columba's guild...